What is the difference between a tonette and a recorder?

What is the difference between a tonette and a recorder?

The main difference between these two instruments is the materials they are made from. The tonette is a plastic instrument and usually made on the cheaper side. Recorders are a bit better quality when it comes to make because they come from the woodwind instrument family.

What is a Tonet instrument?

The stub-ended Swanson Tonette is a small (6″ cavity), end-blown vessel flute made of plastic, which was once popular in American elementary music education. Designed as a pre-band instrument, the Tonette was nearly unbreakable, chromatic, and tunable.

What does a tonette sound like?

The tonette’s unusual closed design yields its singular, rounded sound. Most musicians can discern that tonettes are not open-ended flutes when they hear them. Many claim that they sound like a cross between an end-blown flute and a ceramic ocarina. The song flute features a gently-flared open end.

When was the tonette invented?

1930s
The tonette was invented in the late 1930s by Ziegner Swanson. A variety of companies have manufactured them since including The Tonette Company, Chicago Musical Instrument Co., Swanson, Gibson, and Dimestore Dreams/Binary Arts Corp.

What’s the meaning of Tonette?

Definition of tonette : a simple fipple flute with a range somewhat larger than an octave that is often used in elementary music education.

How do you play a Flutophone?

To play the instrument, cover the appropriate holes corresponding to the fingering for the note, and blow softly through the mouthpiece. The amount of breath used helps create changes in loudness, softness, and emphasis of the notes. The mouthpiece is detachable and can also be used to tune the flutophone.

Is there such thing as a bass flute?

The bass flute is a member of the flute family. It is in the key of C, pitched one octave below the concert flute. Despite its name, its playing range makes it the tenor member of the flute family.

How do you spell Tonette?

a small end-blown flute of simple construction and narrow range.

What is the difference between a recorder and a Flutophone?

Flutophones have a less refined tone due to its whistle mouthpiece, which can give it a shrill quality. Recorders have a softer tone with more concert band quality. The finger holes of the flutophone have grooves making it easy to tell if you are covering the holes properly. A recorder can play all notes.

What is a Tonette flute?

The tonette was a plastic flute. You blew in one end, which had a mouthpiece like a whistle. There were seven holes on the top (for your fingers***) and one on the bottom (for your thumb), so you could play a bit more than an octave.

What are the similar instruments to the Tonette?

Similar instruments are the Song Flute, Flutophone, and Precorder. The Tonette was introduced in 1938. Designed as a pre-band instrument, the tonette was nearly unbreakable, chromatic, and tunable. It was easy to blow and the fingering was simple.

What is the history of the Tonette?

The tonette was invented in 1938 by Zienger Swanson of the Chicago Musical Instrument Company** in 1938 and quickly caught on in schools and in other places where a simple musical instrument was in demand. The tonette was a plastic flute.

What are the different types of flutes?

From top to bottom: Yamaha soprano recorder, Swanson Tonette, Conn-Selmer Song Flute, Grover-Trophy Flutophone, Suzuki Precorder. The Tonette is a small, end-blown flute made of plastic, which was once popular in American elementary music education.

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